Kids in Foster Care: Transformative tools to treat the trauma of abandonment, abuse, grief, and loss

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Jeanette Yoffe, MA, MFT Related seminars and products

Yoffe Therapy

Additional Info

Access never expires for this product.

For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.

Objectives

1. Identify the internal working model of children in foster care and how these models influence their behaviour and relationships.
2. Differentiate terms, roles, placement types, and systems involved in the foster care system.
3. Analyse barriers to mental health services for foster youth, including stigma, access issues, and systemic challenges.
4. Evaluate the impact on brain development, emotional regulation, and attachment styles of children experiencing trauma and abuse.
5. Develop appropriate intervention plans based on assessment findings for anxiety, depression, PTSD, and attachment disorders in foster youth.
6. Plan trauma-focused interventions using a complex trauma lens.

Outline

The World of Foster Care
Interactive experience: Through the eyes of a foster child

• The internal working model of kids in care
• Terms, roles, placement types, and systems
• Current barriers to mental health services

Trauma, Attachment, and the Brain

• Abuse, neglect, and adverse experiences
• Childhood trauma: neurological responses
• Trauma, dissociation, and “foster care syndrome”
• Impact of attachment style
• Four areas of attachment loss in foster care
• The iceberg effect of unmet needs
• The stages of complicated grief

Assessment and Diagnostics

• Determine “what happened to them”
• Trauma-informed assessment strategies
• Tools to differentiate anxiety, depression, PTSD, and attachment disorders

A Framework for Intervention Using a Complex Trauma Lens
It Starts with Connection

• 3 must-use trust-building activities
• Non-verbal strategies to build rapport
• From fight-flight-freeze to regulation
• Therapy sessions: start to finish
• Collaborative case conceptualisation

Coping with Feelings, Thoughts, and Sensations

• Trauma responses via feelings, thoughts, body, and behaviour
• Activities: Hold Onto My Feelings, The Anger Bag, and more
• Age-appropriate strategies to address:
  • Parental mental illness
  • Substance use disorders
  • Death
  • Sexual abuse
  • Abuse and neglect
• ACT and CBT strategies to support selfworth and foster resilience

Construct a Coherent Life Narrative

• Intuitive tips for answering kids’ questions about their past
• Activities
  • My Question Box
  • My Journey Through Placement
  • My Family Tree
  • Parts of Me
• Life Narrative template
• Case study

Treat Anxiety and Depression

• Establish locus of control
• Navigate the distress hill
• EFT and trauma focused strategies for in-the-moment calming
• Alternatives to medication
• Risk assessment and suicidality

Address Attachment Disorders

• Animal-assisted therapy
• Interventions to treat abandonment wounds
• Attachment focused interventions

It Takes a Village: The Foster Care System

• Partner with parents and foster parents
• Establish structure and consistency
• Nurture and heal attachment trauma
• Boundaries and support options
• Collaboration: caseworkers, educators, rehab and medical professionals

Being a Foster Care Competent Counselor

• Ethical and cultural considerations
• The risks and joys involved
• Mitigate counter transference
• Strategies to prevent compassion fatigue
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

• Psychologists
• Counsellors
• Social Workers
• Art Therapists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• School Social Workers
• School Counsellors
• Occupational Therapists
• Physicians